Sordello by Robert Browning — Read

The woods were long austere with snow: at last / Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast / Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes, / Brightened, "as in the slumbrous heart o' the woods / Our buried year, a witch, grew young again / To placid incantations, and that stain / About were from her caldron, green smoke blent / With those black pines" -- so Eglamor gave vent / To a chance fancy. Whence a just rebuke / From his companion; brother Naddo shook / The solemnest of brows; "Beware," he said, / "Of setting up conceits in nature's stead!"

Forth wandered our Sordello. Naught so sure / As that to-day's adventure will secure / Palma, the visioned lady -- only pass / O'er yon damp mound and its exhausted grass, / Under that brake where sundawn feeds the stalks / Of withered fern with gold, into those walks / Of pine and take her! Buoyantly he went. / Again his stooping forehead was besprent / With dew-drops from the skirting ferns. Then wide / Opened the great morass, shot every side / With flashing water through and through; a-shine, / Thick steaming, all alive. Whose shape divine, / Quivered i' the farthest rainbow-vapor, glanced / Athwart the flying herons? He advanced, / But warily; though Mincio leaped no more, / Each footfall burst up in the marish-floor / A diamond jet: and if he stopped to pick / Rose-lichen, or molest the leeches quick, / And circling blood-worms, minnow, newt or loach, / A sudden pond would silently encroach / This way and that. On Palma passed. The verge / Of a new wood was gained. She will emerge / Flushed, now, and panting, -- crowds to see, -- will own / She loves him -- Boniface to hear, to groan, / To leave his suit! One screen of pine-trees still / Opposes: but -- the startling spectacle -- / Mantua, this time! Under the walls -- a crowd / Indeed, real men and women, gay and loud / Round a pavilion. How he stood! / In truth / No prophecy had come to pass: his youth / In its prime now -- and where was homage poured / Upon Sordello? -- born to be adored, / And suddenly discovered weak, scarce made / To cope with any, cast into the shade / By this and this. Yet something seemed to prick / And tingle in his blood; a sleight -- a trick -- / And much would be explained. It went for naught -- / The best of their endowments were ill bought / With his identity: nay, the conceit, / That this day's roving led to Palma's feet / Was not so vain -- list! The word, "Palma! " Steal / Aside, and die, Sordello; this is real, / And this -- abjure!